SLAs in Jira: A short guide to get started easily

Sla for jira service desk getting started

How can you satisfy your customers with your services as much as possible? If you are still looking for the answer, let us help you! To solve customers’ problems and help with their requests on time, try to set up SLAs in Jira. For example, SLA Time and Report for Jira add-on by SaaSJet can be set up easily and really quickly.

What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is one of the most common ways to learn about people’s expectations and how to meet them. Let’s take a quick guide!

We have written a helpful step-by-step guide to assist you with creating your first SLA. First of all, you can discover 2 ways of tracking SLAs in Jira and make a decision on why SLA Time and Report for Jira is a more convenient way to monitor SLA data. 

And now, please follow the steps described below to complete the process!

5 simple steps to configure your SLAs in Jira

Step #1 – Product Value

First and foremost, consider your values. Think about your product’s benefits: on-time delivery, clear expectations, and transparency. Consider that and then debate it with your team.

The first step is accomplished! Now it is time to move on to the next one.

Step #2 – Customer Expectations

Yes, it is critical to comprehend your client’s expectations. Reading clients’ comments, feedback, and questions, and understanding the difficulties they face. These steps can definitely help. And don’t forget to pay attention to a few key points:

  • When did they tell you that you performed a fantastic job? 
  • Where were they satisfied the most? Where not?
  • When did it begin to meet their expectations? 

Make a list of the most important items from the feedback and emphasize the time-related aspects.

Sla in jira service desk reply to customer

Step #3 – Competitor analysis

What comes next? The competitors. You should always know who your competitors are. Do they have any public comments on the delivery time (e.g., quick delivery, responsive customer service)? Do they have any Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or public time requirements for their service? Analyze this data with your team and decide what services would be the best in your market.

jira analytics plugin for sla control

Step #4 – Specification

The following stage is referred to as “be more concrete.” What should I do now?

  • Consider when your consumer asked you a question or reported some problem and started waiting for the answer from your customer support representative.
  • In terms of Jira process, move this request to the first stage (this ticket is received and has a Waiting for support status).
  • Define a Stop stage in Jira when the client receives some value after the request (e.g., Issue moved to Done or Waiting for customer status).

If you have many products, we recommend applying these steps to each one. Maybe some client requests may be categorized by priority, urgency, customer size, or any other condition? Just think about this.

Step #5 – Data acquisition

It’s time to consider gathering data. What does it mean? You can measure your SLA retrospectively using a necessary tool. You can try Jira Service Management or other Atlassian Marketplace apps. Such as SLA Time and Report for Jira add-on. The last one can keep track of SLAs in Jira for all Jira projects (JSM, Jira Software, Jira Core) and create data based on the issues that have already been resolved.

Time to practice: Setting up SLAs in Jira.

Now we’d like to show you how to set up a Jira SLA to collect the data you need:

  1. Set Start and Stop events (use items from the Be more specific stage).
  2. Add a new Team calendar and make sure customers know about it. In the SLA Config, use the calendar.
  3. Go to the Report and filter the most critical issues to see how your team handles them in terms of delivery time. 
  4. Get a report. Jira SLA reporting is a really important and necessary thing.
    For instance:
Product /Service nameStarshipFalcon Heavy
Delivery time based on historical data (Use Median to calculate)6 hours12 hours
Did customers add any positive feedback after Issues had been delivered below the Median time?yesno
Is it possible for my team to demonstrate a consistent delivery time for all issues without making significant changes to the team composition? What should I do differently?yesno
What is the connection between delivery time and customers’ happiness you might see based on the data?directdirect
sla setting up in Jira

Not really. Don’t forget about your teammates. Communicate with your team and discuss everything, emphasizing the need for SLAs implementation and outlining all of the benefits of doing so. You might also explain that SLAs will make your customers happier, and it will benefit your company’s brand and reputation. Set up various milestones to track your working progress and report data to your team.

After that, notify consumers about your SLAs in Jira when you are sure it will be met under the right circumstances. To demonstrate your professional skills, add this to the contract. Make delivery time your competitive advantage! Use social media, add articles to the blog, and so forth. Speak about your business and how your company can help. Show off your benefits!

Takeaway

SLAs in Jira can help you not only raise the level of your customers’ satisfaction, but also help your team work with higher productivity and show better results. We hope these tips and SLA Time and Report for Jira will help you with increasing team efficiency and achieving all your goals!

Additionally, with the Issue History add-on, you can track all the changes (assignee or status one) for each issue during its lifecycle. It will be a great collaboration with SLA Time and Report for Jira and you will get more insights into your workflow process.

Kateryna Vyshnevska

The author of the article

Always strive for the best and to be worth it.

Find out more about SLA Time and Report for Jira

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